


A Bit of Fun

by butterpanic



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Accidental Marriage, F/F, Kirkwall's Ongoing Cult Problem, Magical Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-24 19:28:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20019808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterpanic/pseuds/butterpanic
Summary: There's nothing like a wedding to bring people together.Or a cult.





	A Bit of Fun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keita52](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keita52/gifts).



Hawke should realize by now that when Isabela says "easy" what she really means is "fun."

That the cultists have an artifact of immeasurable power and value isn't really anything noteworthy. This is Kirkwall. Orana has probably thrown out an artifact of immeasurable power and value by accident just this week while sweeping up in the manor.

Isabela had introduced this one with her normal lack of ceremony, an armful of mugs deposited on their usual table at the Hanged Man. Everyone lifted their cards reflexively as a small wave of ale swept past their elbows. No objections at that - it wasn't the first round of the night by far, and the fact that the mugs all remained upright for the entirety of the journey between sticky bar and sticky bench was a feat. Isabela's always been admirable like that.

"Cult."

"No," said Fenris, eyes on his hand. Fenris never went in for the cult jobs. Aveline didn't even dignify the proposal with an answer.

"But it's such an easy one," she purred. "Barely a job. Rolain says they don't even post a guard outside their hideout, and he already has a buyer." She leaned over the table, distractingly close, all her attention on Hawke. Not the first round, but maybe near the last - Hawke had found herself unable to look away, staring in that ale-witted fashion that always lasts just a moment too long. "A very wealthy buyer."

Each word carefully enunciated, all too noticeable to Hawke, who was preoccupied at the movement of her mouth as it shaped each word.

"I'm in." Had she just said that? Definitely the last round, if her tongue was outpacing her brain. Isabela smiled in triumph, then went on to win the next hand without cheating just to reinforce her victory.

So here she is in Lowtown, Varric ambling amiably at her back, the air heavy with that all too familiar Lowtown aroma. Victim, yet again, of Isabela's uncanny powers of persuasion and her absolutely unfair exploitation of the sacred bonds of friendship and cheap alcohol.

This hideout, of course, happens to be only a little bit guarded, the artifact only a little bit evil, and the cultists just a little bit blood-magicky. Easy, as promised. Practically a pleasant daytime stroll through Hightown, though Hawke will allow that those seem to disproportionately summon crowds of bad actors out of thin air when she's around.

There's a catch, of course. There always is, and Isabela never leads with the catch because it's a lot more fun that way.

"We have to be inducted together," she says, in the alley opposite the shady den of cultists conveniently located in what Hawke likes to think of as the Shady Cultist Den neighborhood of Lowtown. Kirkwall is truly a leader in urban planning, among its other, more obvious charms. "Formality, really."

"You have to bring a buddy?" Varric looks up from his careful study of Bianca, already comfortable in his lookout post. "Hah. Cultists these days."

Bring a friend, recite an unbreakable blood oath, dance naked under the moons; it's always a formality, really. Hawke's joined her fair share of cults in the pursuit of unimaginable riches in the last few years and she's beginning to crave some originality.

The thing about cults is that they're always so serious about the whole thing - it's never _not_ a demon masquerading as a god or benevolent spirit seeking the destruction of the world and the mindless obedience of their followers. She's never founded a cult herself, and it's probably harder than it looks, but Hawke likes to think she'd spice things up a little. Dragon worship, maybe.

Absurd hats. There's a movement she could get behind.

Instead, it's the same secret meeting in the same dank basement storeroom, smoke from the braziers threatening to reduce their membership by one before Hawke's even nocked a single arrow. The same chanting, the same promises to serve, to obey, to bind - oh, manacles, that's inventive - and before she knows it, she's presented to the idol, hand in hand with Isabela. Sweaty, smoke-smudged, wishing to the Maker above that they're about to be introduced to whatever friendly neighborhood demon has sunk its claws into the closest credulous citizen of Kirkwall and festered.

The idol doesn't look like much. Nothing as impressive as a pulsing chunk of red lyrium, though given her recent reunion with Bartrand that's probably for the best. The reason for the requirement of two is disappointingly obvious when they're presented for inspection. A rough wooden carving, two figures side by side, grimy with the smoke of countless inductions and worn smooth by many hands. A hooded priest tugs the chain that binds her to Isabela, drawing them to the idol.

Hawke's hands itch.

"Now, our beloved sisters," the robed figure intones, waving incense over the golden manacles that stretch between them wrist-to-wrist, "place your hands upon our most sacred symbol and repeat the oaths."

(The incense smells familiar. Do these people all shop at the same stall?)

The oaths. Good sign, this should be wrapping up soon. Hawke isn't entirely sure there's a demon of pointless ceremony out there, but if there is, she must have sworn eternal devotion to it somewhere along the line.

"I am yours, as you are mine." She meets Isabela's eyes. That's easy enough. Rolls off the tongue like water as they exchange it, though Isabela throws in a wink that might blow their cover if they weren't about to neutralize everyone there.

"She is yours," the cultists repeat, "as you are hers."

Really, would it be so much to ask for a cult to consider meeting in some den of secrets with proper ventilation? Hawke's head swims as she struggles to focus on the ritual. Sweat beads on her neck, pricking under her arms, dripping between her breasts. This initiation could do with a breeze. Maybe there'll be an afterparty somewhere she can see the sky.

Hopefully not an orgy. That had been a memorable escape, and the cache of cursed coins had cost her her favorite pair of breeches.

"You are she as she is you. Bound until both are bound, from now until eternity." Hawke attempts to repeat the line but her tongue is heavy in her mouth, a weight that follows her down to the floor. The last thing she sees is that damn artifact. From below, they almost look like they're smirking. She'd wipe that smile off their wooden faces, if only she could keep her eyes open.

* * *

She is a ship on the ocean. Sunwarmth and damp sea spray and the steady rise and fall of the waters rolling beneath, a comforting cradle.

"What the hell, Hawke?"

It's an effort to peel her eyes open. Varric, rather than the horizon, and not the sea but Isabela's bosom, swelling soft and the damp - well, she's been drooling, apparently. Lovely.

Novel. The last time she'd fallen asleep on Isabela's bosom, she'd woken up alone.

Hawke is rather unceremoniously deposited on the cellar floor as Isabela springs awake, heaving. The pirate steadies on her hands and knees, pulling in deep breaths that Hawke envies. The cultists, she notices, are nowhere to be seen. As is the idol. The golden manacles, too, which is a true blow. They'd have pulled a fair bit of coin themselves. Nobles always do like a bit of fun.

"I take it we didn't get it, then?"

Varric laughs, a bitter bark that echoes through her skull and makes her regret several recent decisions. And associations.

"There must have been another exit. You've been gone for hours. I finally came in to rescue you, and, well-" He gestures around the empty room. The cultists even managed to pack up the altar. "Unless you've got the idol stashed somewhere I don't want to check."

"I am going to kill Rolain," Isabela declares, wobbling unsteadily as she stands. "He didn't mention a back door. Or drugging as part of the induction." She stalks off, fury gathering dignity in a show of justified anger that would have been far more impressive if she hadn't fallen over her own feet within two steps. "Ooof," she says, mostly to the dust. The cultists had cleared the room, it seems, but not bothered to sweep up. Quite rude, in Hawke's view.

Her cult will swear an oath. 'Leave the secret hideout cleaner than you found it.'

"You don't see that every day," Varric says, and his tone is so studiously casual that Hawke immediately knows it's a problem. He hefts her wrist in one hand, pointedly interested in the intricate tattoo that wraps it in black swirls.

This is not, Hawke must allow, the first time she's woken with a tattoo she doesn't remember. The dragon rising rampant over her ass is proof of that. This is, however, the first time she's woken up with one sober, no matter what her throbbing head argues, and she's very sure she'd remember slipping past Varric's watch and slurring her way into one of Lowtown's most famous inkshops with Isabela, who is currently drawing a wary finger around the collar of her own wrist.

"Oh, this is..." Varric seems torn between sympathy and naked interest as Hawke and Isabela inspect each other's marks.

"Please, stop talking." At Isabela's words, Hawke leaves off idly tracing the lazy curves of the tattoo. It's fascinating, familiar somehow in a way she can't quite place. "I want a drink, I want a nap, and we need to find that damned idol. Maybe not in that order."

"Sure we shouldn't cut our losses?" Varric suggests, practical as always. Isabela's mouth twists in a way that suggests no one will like what follows.

"I may have received an advance from Rolain." She pauses, a flash of teeth worrying at her lower lip. "A fairly sizable one. Guaranteed by the estate of my very good friend, the Champion of Kirkwall."

Well, shit.

* * *

_The deck sways under her feet and Hawke smiles. Sun on her face, wind in her sails and a sea of possibilities everywhere she casts her eye. The crew works below her, every man and woman on a mission in a dance that's familiar and gratifying all at once. Her ship, her crew, her adventure; only a single reserved breath in her chest to hold her from leaping into the sky on golden wings. She draws it in and rises on her toes, booted feet almost lifting free of the wooden planks beneath-_

Hawke starts awake, spitting a mouthful of salt water over the side of her bed. Somewhere deep in the depths of her mind, a tiny shred of sense desperately sounds an alarm, but it's lost in the muggy haze of morning. At her feet, Dog jerks and paws at nothing, still wrapped in some dream pursuit. Hawke wishes him well at the great hunt, be it nug or bandit.

She never dreams, herself.

Kirkwall is beginning to wear at the seams, and Hawke is not immune to the weight that every citizen seems to carry as of late. She yawns her way through breakfast and drapes herself over every upholstered chair in the manor before reluctantly abandoning her lethargy for a lost cause. No destination in mind when she steps outside, but her feet steer her unerringly towards the Hanged Man. Surely Isabela has some sort of amusement in store to take her thoughts off of the unbearable state of anticipation the city seems locked in lately. A lead on that damn idol, perhaps.

Yesterday was a challenge. Who doesn't like a little challenge now and then? The cult is probably holed up in some little cave on the coast. A quick afternoon's walk. Sunshine, fresh air, wiping out a cult and stealing their precious demon vessel, back in time for supper.

"Do I smell like dog to you?"

Hawke leans closer to Isabela to take a sniff. No dog, just sweat.

"Is there a reason you would?" Isabela opens her mouth then closes it, brows drawn in momentary confusion.

"Last night I thought I..." She trails off, attention drawn elsewhere in the tavern. Hawke pulls her closer to draw in a few more deep breaths, just to be sure.

"Are we going to talk about this?"

"Talk about what, Varric?" Isabela shifts on Hawke's lap to grab at more grapes from the bowl on the table. She laughs delightedly as Hawke catches the few she tosses her way unerringly, mouth open.

It's not that Varric never has cause to look at her like she's an idiot, Hawke's just not sure what she's done to deserve it this time.

"You are aware Isabela is sitting on your lap, right?" That's ridiculous, of course Isabela is sitting on her lap. A little awkwardly balanced, perhaps, but the chairs at the Hanged Man are barely rated for one to start. It's that kind of local charm that keeps them coming back, day after day. If she can't exactly remember why Isabela is sitting on her lap, that hardly matters. Isabela's got good reasons for the things she chooses, even if Hawke doesn't understand them at the time.

"If it's making you jealous, I'll move." Isabela flops over into her own seat, and as the weight lifts from her thighs Hawke allows that she doesn't quite understand how the woman got there in the first place.

It is easier to concentrate on Varric now without Isabela's arms around her neck.

"I'm not saying you should be worried," says Varric, worried, "but that tattoo was smaller yesterday."

Was it? It's not like she's spent much time examining it. Maybe a few times today, every hour or two. Really, if Varric had a mysterious magic tattoo he'd probably be much more concerned than she is right now. It almost moves beneath her hand as she strokes it, black lines stark against her skin. Those cultists have quite the eye for design, she has to give them that.

It's perhaps a little larger. When she woke up on the cellar floor, it wreathed the span of her wrist, an echo of the manacle with which they'd been bound. Did it? The memory is hazy, her mind slipping over it until unreliable, like a story told secondhand over cups and cards. It covers half of her forearm now, thick lines twisting. Surely, it's always been that large. She can't imagine she wouldn't have noticed it growing.

Varric worries too much.

"And right there, you're-"

"We're what?" Isabela raises her head peevishly from where's she's dropped it to rest on Hawke's. It's a move that puts Hawke's face somewhere fairly picturesque, so she's only half listening.

" _You're back in her lap again._ "

There's enough alarm in Varric's voice that even a half-listen gets her attention this time. It's not that she and Isabela live chaste and spare like Sebastian up in the Chantry. They had, after all, done a lot more than sit in each other's laps that night years ago. Several times.

Someone had even called the guard.

But that night and what followed had thoroughly dissuaded them from a repeat performance. They were friends, good friends, but not the kind of friends who find themselves in taverns sharing one rickety stool unless someone's lost a bet. Isabela straightens suddenly.

"Yes, fine, I see it," she says, and this time when she chooses her own seat she picks one across the table from Hawke. "This is a bit... weird"

Well, then. There's only one option when it comes to hopelessly weird.

* * *

"Merrill!" Isabela pounds at the heavy door, and Hawke has to purposefully restrain herself from raising a fist to join her. They're saved, Hawke's hand somehow raised all the same, by the cheerful clicking and sliding and thumping of several sets of locks and latches. More seem to manifest somehow every time Varric makes a visit round. Just a coincidence, surely.

"Oh!" Merrill is happy to see them. Merrill is always happy to see them, and bound together by an ancient blood ritual isn't even the worst way Hawke and Isabela have ever shown up at her doorstep.

One time, they'd managed to get their hands on maras'lok.

The problem, once they've thoroughly explained their situation to Merrill, isn't that she keeps interjecting oddly fond sighs at all the important bits, it's that she doesn't seem to see the immediate concern.

Merrill's nose wrinkles. "I can look into it, I suppose," she says, "but isn't it nice? To be together? You've always been such good friends."

Just friends, and that's all they've ever wanted to be. Hawke knew what she was getting into when she let Isabela in that night, didn't even mind the empty bed in the morning. Because Hawke has a mouth that won't close and Isabela was born on the wind; whatever they may have felt towards each other has always held this supreme. Hawke doesn't do heartfelt confessions, and Isabela doesn't do anchors.

"This is ridiculous," snaps Isabela, and Hawke can't help but feel a little undignified as she grabs at the table to resist the overwhelming need to flee out the door behind her.

The tattoo begins to burn.

* * *

Anders becomes their unexpected savior. Rumors in Lowtown, he says, a new cult in a cave that just last month was home to another, different cult.

She really must talk to Aveline about this cult problem.

Beyond that, he's not much help. He doesn't offer to accompany them, but Hawke wouldn't have allowed it even if he had. Anders is as worn as all of them plus a measure more, eyes sunken and dark. He looks like he hasn't slept in an age.

The tip is solid, though. Here, the cave, there, the cult.

Unfortunately, cults in Kirkwall tend to follow a fairly predictable path as they spiral on towards raising their unspeakable demons and calling down the fury of the unknowable. Judging by the ring of bodies on the floor, this one's reached the botched-ceremony-kills-all-participants stage. The binding circle is still intact. Inside, a desire demon, placidly chewing the head off of one half of the wooden couple from the altar.

So much for that advance.

"Ah!" It stirs, tossing the now widowed half of the idol over its shoulder. "Look who's here! Wife and wife."

"We're not married," says Hawke, hefting her bow. "We're just here to kill you as friends."

The demon scoffs.

"You most certainly are," it says. "Have you forgotten the wedding already?"

One of the cultists stirs for a moment, then lies still once more. Dead or discovering a new sense of self-preservation.

"Shouldn't there have been some sort of ceremony?" Hawke's always been more of a casual believer, but she's fairly sure that a marriage has to take place in a chantry. There's... vows, and such.

Oh no.

Varric, that utter ass, puts the thought to words. "You mean, like the ceremony when you held hands and pledged to be together for eternity?"

Yes. That one. Her wedding, apparently. Bethany is going to kill her when she finds out.

"Well, undo it then."

"Undo it?" The demon seems genuinely puzzled at the request.

"Yes, undo it." Isabela paces outside the circle, daggers unsheathed in open threat. "You put the curse on us, you can remove it."

"It's a wedding ceremony, not a _curse_. I'm of half a mind to take back your gifts."

Hawke follows its hooded eyes as they land on her uncovered arm.

"These are... a gift?" The demon grins, an expression at once motherly and unsettling. She suppresses a shiver. "I hate to seem ungrateful, but they're not a very good one."

"What better gift for the newlyweds? A little honeymoon for the lovers, the cares of the world fading into mere whispers as they leave behind the stress of the wedding..."

"Thank you," Isabela says, "for the lovely present, but since it wasn't a real wedding and we aren't lovers, you can have them back." Something in her voice draws tighter than Hawke's bowstring, but it only seems to encourage the creature before them.

"I am Desire," it drawls, "that's not how it works. Two strangers join hands at my altar, those little baubles might as well be berry ink. You're only bound together because you want to be, _beloved sisters_.

"Or at least one of you wants to be."

The demon's eyes burn through Hawke. Worse, so do Isabela's.

"My, my," says the desire demon, form wavering and clouding, "is that the time? I really must be going."

It lunges suddenly at the bindings that prevent it from exiting what has become an extremely uncomfortable conversation. Merrill is quicker, though, and while Hawke and Isabela may still be bound uselessly by their own discomfort, Varric isn't nearly as distracted. The twang of a crossbow bolt, an unearthly yelp and a puff of pleasantly scented smoke (ah, that's why the incense seemed familiar) and Thedas contains one less desire demon.

Well, _shit._

* * *

The crowd that gathers at the tavern for supper is subdued. It's not the end of the world - the one nice thing about Kirkwall is that there's always someone willing to perform dangerous and forbidden magic on a willing customer. Going to the source would have been quicker, but with any luck, they'll be rid of the marks and the marriage before they're forced to wear scarves everywhere in the summer. Still, Hawke is nagged by the feeling that something is set just one step out of place, ready to fall.

She draws back her hand from where it's crept along the table, fingertips almost brushing Isabela's.

"Look on the bright side," she says. "When we're covered from head to toe, you'll be the most fearsome pirate on the high seas." The laughs around the table are uneasy, her own the uneasiest.

Isabela isn't laughing.

"Say it's a lie." She says it quietly into her mug, but the table has fallen silent anyway. "That you don't want the binding."

"Say it's a lie, Hawke," she repeats, eyes narrow. Hawke opens her mouth to reply, only to be cut off immediately. "For once in your life, don't make a joke. Say one true thing."

Hawke doesn't have an answer. Isabela wants a lie from truth, but she has all she needs in her silence. One heel turn and she's out the door so fast she nearly sets a drunken patron to grilling on the fire.

"You're an idiot, Hawke," says Aveline, "and you know I don't say that lightly."

That is completely untrue and Hawke would argue the point with her if she weren't currently being crushed beneath the weight of her own idiocy. The ink on her arm burns ever upward, and she doesn't have to look down to know it's advancing once more as Isabela grows father from reach.

She makes for the harbor, eyes stinging.

Isabela will leave. She left once, and Hawke considers herself the luckiest woman in the world that she returned that time. She isn't such a fool to believe she'll taste that luck again.

This time, Hawke is the anchor around her neck. Or her wrist. She pursues her awkwardly until they run out of pursuit, incessant need tugging, the wood of the dock creaking under their boots. Isabela stops short, entire body slumping like she's hit an invisible wall. Below them, the water churns, whispering secrets hidden in the dark spaces between lanterns' light.

"You never told me."

She never quite looked at the tattoo, not really looked the way she is now. Too easy to get distracted, lost in whatever spell has them both so addled. Black lines twine from her elbow towards her wrist, slipping and trading into waves. Above, flourishes. Clouds, maybe, but as she looks at Isabela's back, she understands. Birds, wings spread and flying free.

"I'm sorry." There, that's true. She's said one true thing. "I didn't want to tie you down."

There's two.

Isabela turns into the light and Hawke takes a moment to consider how lucky she's been to have her for a wife, even if only for a week. She's going to miss her. She's already started missing her, which is ridiculous, because unless Isabela is planning on swimming all the way to the ocean, she's going to have to walk back past her at some point.

There is nothing between them but the breeze as she leans into her lips. A breath away as she says a third honest thing, finally, the words she's been wanting to say for a long time. Ever since she woke up alone in her bed in the manor, ever since she watched Isabela retreat into the flames, never to return.

Ever since she came back.

"If you run away, take me with you."

In Isabela's dark eyes she sees the sea, chaos and calm in equal measure.

"Take me home, Hawke."

Isabela is not quiet in her affections. That much hasn't changed. Hawke is already quite notorious among her neighbors in Hightown and the company she keeps tonight is not likely to sway their opinion. They're going to have to get used to it. She can't find it in herself to care as Isabela rises and falls beneath her mouth. Salt and sunwarmth on her tongue, the gentle pulse of her around her fingers.

An anchor can be a tether, but when it lowers into the silt of a sheltered harbor what that tether means is home. Here, in the manor, or on the expanse of the sea. Wherever Isabela wants to take her, when all of this is over. 

"I love you," Isabela whispers, somehow louder than everything that came before it. Hawke feels the words sink into her chest, tugging her beneath the waves into satisfied sleep.

Drawing her home.

In the morning light she takes a look at Isabela's already-fading tattoo with clear eyes. Dogs' teeth and dragon wings.

Really, how had they not _noticed_?

* * *

"New jobs," Hawke says without ceremony, depositing her armful of mugs on the stained wood of their usual table. "Who's got a lead?"

Varric finishes his swig, now-empty mug awaiting exchange. "We're finished with the cult?"

"Cult's gone, isn't it? Feels like a job well done to me."

At a distance Isabela's presence tugs at her mind, but only a tug. Not the burn of ink spiraling higher. Not that urge that leads to thoroughly discomfiting everyone around them in the tavern. (Though the day was still young.) Bound until both are bound, from now until eternity.

"Huh," Varric says, and that's all he says. He launches into some half-recalled story, a hedonistic secret society reliant on a demon plate that compels anyone eating grapes and cheese off of it to go quite assuredly mad, and Hawke slings her arm around Isabela's shoulders.

Cults. Almost too easy.


End file.
